The use of appropriate on-board diagnostic systems, called OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) systems, on motor vehicles and motorcycles is known, designed to detect and report any failure or malfunction of the vehicle.
In practice, the systems according to the OBD-II standard in the United States and the corresponding E-OBD standard in Europe are able to provide e.g. to a specialized technician within a garage during the overhaul of a vehicle, all information required to analyze the status of each subsystem of the vehicle itself.
The recent implementation of OBD systems employ a suitable digital communication port through which, once connected to a special external analysis unit, it is possible to find real-time information about the status of the vehicle, together with any report of faults and malfunctions of the vehicle by means of DTC (Diagnostic Trouble Codes) standard codes.
The OBD digital communication port meets predefined standards common to all models and makes of vehicles and can be connected to a diagnosis external unit by means of a respective connector.
It is also well known and increasingly widespread the use of monitoring equipment which can be installed on board of a vehicle and usable to detect the modes of use of the vehicle itself over time.
Such equipment may comprise a GPS locator, a GSM module and a motion sensor of the type of an accelerometer and find application, e.g., for assistance in case of failure or theft or in the insurance field, for the determination of customized rates on the basis of the actual use of the vehicle or for the determination and subsequent assessment of unexpected events such as accidents.
In particular, a specific type of such equipment is composed of a module enclosed in a suitable container and directly connectable to the OBD digital communication port.
In this way, the equipment is able to access a plurality of information available directly from the internal diagnostic system of the vehicle.
The OBD connectors of known type which can be connected to the digital communication port of the diagnostic system of a vehicle have, however, a number of drawbacks.
In fact, the OBD connectors of known type are made for occasional connections and for short connection times with a stationary vehicle and, therefore, have not been developed with specific retention systems to ensure the tightness with moving vehicles.
Therefore, the connector can disconnect from the relative communication port due to the common vibration that may occur during the normal transit of the vehicle or following accidental impact by the driver of the vehicle itself.
This problem is particularly felt with reference to the connectors used for the connection of the above mentioned monitoring equipment.
In this case, in fact, the possibility of an accidental and undesired detachment is even greater, because the connector must support the weight of the monitoring equipment and therefore is greatly affected with vibrations and oscillations of the equipment itself.